


i need you at the darkest time

by caravanslost



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Army, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 06:19:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15285546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caravanslost/pseuds/caravanslost
Summary: You can't love a man and lead him at the same time.





	i need you at the darkest time

“ _No_ ,” says Nik, and he’s sick of the word.

He had already said it calmly and patiently; and then again, with mounting frustration; and now, angrily, decisively, declaring an end to the conversation like a red flare in the sky.

He’s lost count of the number of times he’s said _no_ tonight. It does not pay to count, with Damen.

They’re alone in his office. The rest of the base is firmly asleep, the only exceptions being the soldiers rostered to keep sentry for the night. No men, no drills, no raised voices, no one barging into Nik’s office in need of instruction. Something close to silence hangs about the base, and it’s a rare blessing.

In the centre of the room, between Damen and Nik, is a square table. It is large enough to seat eight, and in a room where most surfaces serve a dozen purposes, the table has only one. It bears the weight of a map so large, so heavy, that its borders run over the edges and almost spill to the floor.

The map is an enlarged detail of the hell-hole region where they’ve been posted. It was the first item that had Nik unpacked in this office, and the one to which he found himself returning most often. He has passed hours hunched over it, pondering a solution to their mission. The map is easily the largest item in the room, and the most important.

Damen, unthinkingly, has put his beer on it.

The surface of the map already bears four ringed stains, mostly from mugs of coffee. Damen is responsible for each one. Nik regards the beer bottle with irritation, but they’re already arguing. He doesn’t open a fresh battle on a new front.

Damen watches him from the other side of the table. He’s hunched over the map too, his hands on it and bearing his weight. His jaw is set.

“Let me do this,” he says, ablaze with determination. “Let me win this for us.”

“Damen,” Nik says, in lieu of no, and this time his tone is a warning.

But the response comes low and deadly. “Don’t you dare _Damen_ me, when you know I’m right.”

And the thing is—

—he probably is.

Their eyes return to the centre of the map.

At centre-right is their target – the mountainous city of Ankiros, perched at the highest point of an inhospitable, rocky terrain. Command had received good intelligence that the city was providing refuge to Decimus, a warlord that had evaded capture for three years. His capture and death might not end the war, but it would perhaps nudge the fight a little closer to its end.

But the path to Ankiros, and therefore to Decimus, is forbidding. The only route up the mountain is a single road, steeply inclined and wildly exposed. The terrain around it is carpeted with rocky cliffs, hostile to all but those who grew up around them.

At centre-left, and well below the city, is the military base they established a month ago on the endless flatlands. The terrain around the base is dust and empty horizons. It parched a man’s throat, just to think about it.

It was a stalemate. No one from the town could come down—and no one had, for a month—but no one from the base could go up either. The arrival of Nik’s troops had signalled an impasse, and nothing had changed since then.

Damen, like a chained hurricane, was growing restless.

“We wait,” says Nik. “We wait till the town runs out of supplies, and then we strike.”

“That town has _civilians_. Women. Children. You’d starve them, just to smoke out one man?”

“I take no pleasure in the thought, and don’t you _dare_ suggest that I do.” Nik warns. “But Decimus is an artery. If we take him out, we immobilize everything under him.”

“At the cost of innocent lives.” Damen says, savagely. “Whereas I’d finish this mission in a week, if you’d just _let me_.”

Nik bangs a fist on the table. He doesn’t mean to do it. Damen doesn’t flinch.

“You don’t get to moralize with me about the cost of lives in the same breath that you ask me to gamble with yours.” Nik says, low and deadly. “I won’t, Damen. I _won’t_.”

He was sick of the idea. Sick of hearing about it, and sick of turning it down.

Damen had first peddled the one-man mission to him a week ago. Nik was alone, the first person at breakfast, enjoying the mess hall in its rare quiet. Damen had arrived and sat across from him, quietly outlined the plan, and left him to contemplate it.

Damen had said that a group advance would be visible from the town, Any soldiers witless enough to travel up that road would be shot down down like cans at a fairgame. But one man, travelling up the _side_ of that hostile and rocky mountain, might go unnoticed. One man, dressed in the right kind of camouflage and with the right kind of look, might sneak into the town. And Damen, if he didn’t shave for a week, had the hulking look of the locals. He spoke the native language well enough to make do, unless someone was listening with suspicious ears.

Nik knows that a one-man mission is a good idea—maybe even a brilliant one. But the brilliance of Damen’s ideas is always, _always_ matched by their suicidal stakes, almost to the unit.

Nik steps back from the map. He reaches for the chair behind him and collapses into it, scrubbing the exhaustion out of his face. His head throbs in protest and he needs to sleep, or at least to argue about something different for a while. He closes his eyes for a few moments and reopens them to find Damen right where he left him, his defiance unbridled.

Nik says, conclusively, “I won’t let you put yourself at risk. I’m not delivering your corpse to your brother.”

Damen laughs at that—an acidic, humorless sound.

“You think Kastor cares if I die?” He asks, a new edge to his voice, like a freshly sharpened blade. “Why do you think he sent _our_ battalion out here? Why do you think we’re in the middle of nowhere, with only half the men we need and none of the equipment?”

“I know,” Nik concedes, because what else can he do? It’s the truth. “I’m sure nothing would give him greater pleasure than watching us fail. But I don’t think he wants you to _die_ for it.”

“Do you know what I’ve been doing, for the last month?”

“Tell me.”

“I’ve been imagining Decimus dead at my feet. Imagining all the different ways I could rub Kastor's face in it.” Damen says, voice shaking. “Let me make it happen. Please.”

The jackhammer throb in Nik’s temple intensifies. He kneads it with his fingers in vain.

Rue the day that Kastor passed over Damen and made Nik Captain. Rue the day that he was put in charge of his best friend and lover.

It had been an inspired move by Kastor—a public blow to Damen, and an elevation that Nik didn’t want. It wasn’t enough to come between them, but the optics were terrible. It _looked_ awful. It fomented whispers about what Damen had done to earn the slight. Damen was proud enough to wear them off, but the insult was obvious, and intentional.

Worse still: it stuck a legal wedge between Nik and Damen. For the first time in their military careers, one of them out-ranked the other. Relationships between a superior officer and a direct subordinate were forbidden. To continue as they were—as they had always been—was now not only difficult, but _illegal_. A kiss could see them both disciplined. A fuck might get them court-martialled.

Nik knew that at some point, somewhere, Kastor had contemplated that exact possibility and frothed.

“Kastor can go fuck himself.” He says bitterly. “ _I_ care if you die. I won’t lose my best solider because you have a bone to pick with your brother.”

“Soldier? Is that what I am to you, now?”

Nik flashes him a warning look. “You don’t get to play that card, when you're asking me to bless your suicide mission.”

Damen pulls his beer off the map and takes a long, heavy drag of it. Nik watches him drain the rest of the bottle; and the long, sturdy column of his throat as it moves.

He watches because he can’t do anything else. They haven’t fucked in three months.

Three months since Makedon’s surprise re-assignment and Nik’s surprise promotion. Three months since they had shared a bunk. Three months since they scrambled to wake up before the rest of the unit, and in the rush of their movements, accidentally put on each other’s clothes.

The air is sweltering—the air conditioning still hasn’t been fixed—and Damen’s black t-shirt is damp with sweat. It suits him. The sight of him like this is every summer they’ve ever spent, every scorched afternoon under the sun, running and laughing till they’re dizzy in the heat.

Damen finishes his drink, replaces it back on the map, and wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand. His gaze is as heavy as the air that sits around them, warm and still and immovable. There’s intent in his eyes—the kind they can’t afford to give in to.

It’s torture, having Damen this close. Nik knows that if he reached out a hand, Damen wouldn’t miss a beat in coming to him. Damen would crowd him against the shelves because Damen didn’t give a fuck about disciplinary protocols. He only observed them out of respect for _him._

Nik wills himself to focus, and finds that he can’t.

“I wish you’d let me fuck you.” Damen says deliberately, aflame. “You used to agree to anything, after a fuck.”

* * *

The next morning, Nik takes his time shaving. A coffee mug is balanced precariously on the side of the basin. It’s the only breakfast his stomach can tolerate after last night’s fight. Damen had stormed out on him and Nik had barely slept

He’s still not ready for the day when someone knocks on his bathroom door—a petrified, staccato kind of knock, all urgency and no manners. The sound of it unsettles him. Enough people have knocked on his door in three months for him to judge the bad omens from the good.

Nik’s razor pauses for a moment under his jaw. His eyes are on the mirror, watching the door’s reflection.

“Come in,” he says.

The door opens and reveals Private Isander. The young man is visibly uncomfortable, unable to meet Nik’s eye immediately, or for any length of time thereafter. He’s one of the youngest members of their battalion, doubtless the reason why he’s been bullied into the role of messenger.

But Nik’s in no state to pity him. He’s barely taken three sips of his coffee, and his shirt is slung over his shoulder. His face is half-shaved. He gives Isander a few moments to temper his nerves, and uses them to finish the job.  

He’s rinsing his razor by the time Isander musters the courage to say, “Sir.”

“I’m a little busy, solider. Can it wait?”

“No. It’s—uh, urgent,” he manages, eventually. Then he remembers himself, and adds, “sir.”

There’s a distinctly un-soldierly tremor in his voice. Nik towels off his hands and holds Isander’s gaze in the mirror. The boy is beet red.

“What happened?” Nik asks, steeling his tone.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Isander blurts out.

As soon as he says _that_ , Nik knows. In his heart, he knows. A force seizes on his gut like a clamped fist and jerks it down, below his knees, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that the rest of him doesn’t go to the ground as well.  

“Sorry,” Nik echoes. “For—”

“—Lieutenant Akielos, sir,” says Isander, apologetically. “He’s gone.”

* * *

Nik enforces the AWOL protocols and holds his tongue. It's bad enough that Damen's gone. If it comes out that he disobeyed direct orders, Damen would be ruined. 

They comb through the base once, twice, three times. Damen is nowhere to be found. His bunk is uncharacteristically immaculate, but aside from a missing rucksack, no one knows what he’s taken or left behind from his room. The kitchen reports an absence of seven combat ration packs. Inventory reports that a single M4 carbine rifle is missing, along with three magazines.

Damen has enough food to last two weeks outside of base, and enough bullets to achieve his goal ninety times over.

That, or get himself spectacularly killed.

* * *

On the third day after his disappearance, Nik reports Damen’s absence to his brother. Kastor receives the news mildly. Nik could have been speaking about anyone, for all he reacts. Damen’s words come back to him like needles breaking through skin: _You think Kastor cares if I die?_

By the fifth day, Nik stops sleeping. He lies in bed, replaying their last conversation with all the sober benefits of hindsight. He cycles through thoughts like beads on a rosary—wishes that he’d been more diplomatic; less dismissive; that he’d let Damen kiss him; and given less of a damn about the risk. Nik worries, too, that they’ll never touch again, that their last conversation was a fight, that their might already be a corpse; that they might never recover it.

On the seventh day, news comes.

Not from Ankiros, but from Command: intercepted intelligence that Decimus was found dead in his bed by his mistress, a single bullet through his temple. They receive photos. The gunshot wound is stellate, at the juncture of his brows, and its margins are blackened and seared. The wound speaks of a shot taken with the muzzle directly against the skin. Decimus had likely died staring into the eyes of whoever had killed him.

His room had been otherwise undisturbed when they found him. All the entrances and windows had been secured. There were no other casualties to speak of.

More importantly, the assassin remained at large, his identity unknown.

Nik, who had been holding his breath in fear of a second corpse, exhales.

* * *

Then, comes the ninth day. He’s in the middle of another briefing when Corporal Pallas bursts through the door, formality be damned.

It’s clear that he’s sprinted here, and it takes him a few moments to recover his breath. As the young Corporal stands wheezing and gasping in the doorway, a hope rises in Nik—unbidden—and so mighty that if it’s crushed, he fears it might take him down with it.

“Speak, soldier,” he says, heart in his throat.

“Lieu—“ He says, and pulls himself upright, and pounds his chest to recover. “Sir. He’s back. Lieutenant Akielos. He’s back.”

In that moment, Nik wants to run.

He wants to sprint to him, to see him whole, to feel the solid weight of Damen’s living, breathing body in his arms. He wants to examine every inch of his skin, scanning for new scars, to hear him speak and laugh. A new fear had come to him quietly over the nine days, that Damen might come back but different, broken somehow. 

But Nik doesn’t immediately get up. He cannot be seen to run. Instead, he thanks Pallas and dismisses him. Then, he turns a steely eye on Sergeant Nestor, forcing him to complete his briefing, before dismissing him as well.

Then Nik goes to his bathroom, locks the door, and lets go of his control at the sink.

Only with his hands gripping either side of the basin does he realize that he’s shaking. Whether it’s for relief that Damen’s alive, or for fear of what’s to come, he can’t say. But he stands there and avoids looking at his own reflection till the tremors subside.

They’ll court-martial Damen. They’ll imprison him for at least five years.

But God, at least he’s alive.

* * *

 They’ve taken Damen to one of the holding rooms.

Nik walks in to find a small crowd of soldiers. Pallas and Isander flank either side of Damen, and Sergeant Adrastus stands imperiously nearby. Someone’s made a point of stacking the room with people, in case Damen gets any ideas about leaving again.

Which he won’t, because he can't. He’s on the floor, on his knees, and heavily shackled.

Damen looks up at Nik when he walks in the room. Their eyes meet, and the nine longest days of Nik’s life come to an abrupt end. Nik’s heart almost punches through his chest. Damen doesn’t react at all. His gaze is an unbroken line.

But he smells like landfill. His skin is layered with two weeks’ worth of dirt and grot, and the faces of the three guards closest to him are crinkled with distaste. Each one of them holds a gun aimed cautiously at some part of him, his head or his chest, but the weapons might as well be ornamental. Nik knows—and likely, so do the soliders—that Damen could disarm all three of them before they’ve chambered a round.

He’s gaunter as well. Damen’s still bigger than everyone else in the room, twice over, but Nik knows his body well enough to know how much more of it there should be. The full strength of his jaw is concealed by a thick beard, and there’s a fresh, deep scar on the crest of his left cheek, freshly scabbed.

But he’s alive, and his eyes are bright and resolute, and they dwell on Nik long enough to make the crowd uncomfortable. Nik doesn’t waver. He probes without words to see whether Damen’s okay, and something in Damen’s gaze answers _yes_.

“Soldier,” says Nik, with a sterile tone.

All eyes turn to Damen. Everyone in the room knows they’ve been lovers. The air is thick with anticipation, a voyeurism that curls like poison ivy against Nik’s skin. It pricks at his estimation of every man in the room. They’re here for a show, and he hopes that Damen won’t give them one.

A lengthy silence passes.

Into it, Damen says, with a voice as firm as deep-seated roots, “Sir.”

“Captain,” begains Adrastus. “The Lieutenant walked back into base this afternoon. We immediately arrested him for desertion.”

Damen, watching Adrastus with a neutral expression, suddenly arches a single, contrary brow.

“Desertion?” He asks. “Good one.”

The room turns back to him in unison, staring in disbelief. Two weeks ago, every man in the room would have stepped aside to let Damen pass through a corridor. Now, Nik watches the beginnings of recoil in their expressions. Desertion during wartime carries a maximum penalty of death. If Damen plans to sit there and treat the matter blithely, he’d lose the room, and word would spread, and even Nik wouldn’t be able to help him.

Adrastus recovers first. “You,” he booms, knocking a rough knee into Damen’s shoulder, causing him to jolt backwards, “don’t speak till you’re spoken to.”

But Damen’s eyes are unyielding, and there’s a new light behind them. Nik suddenly realizes that Damen’s words are to a purpose.

After pulling himself upright, Damen says, “Captain? Permission to tell them about the mission, sir?”

He’s playing a game – and asking Nik to play along.

The room turns back to Nik, awaiting the return serve, and all he can do is stare back at Damen. He thinks, savagely, _You son of a bitch_ , and hopes that Damen can read it loud and clear in his eyes. Nik had spent the better part of a week trying to talk Damen down from the madness, without success. It seems that Damen intends to reward him by laying all the credit at his feet.

Nik says, “Release the Lieutenant.”

Every mouth in the room drops, bar two. Faint edges of satisfaction play at the corner of Damen’s mouth, and Nik’s is set in a hard and unrelenting line.

Incredulously, Adrastus says, “Sir?”

“I said, release him.”

“But sir—“

“It wasn’t a suggestion, Sergeant,” says Nik, raising his voice. “Release him, and if I have to ask you again, those cuffs are coming off his wrists and _onto yours_.”

That shuts him up. Adrastus bends down behind Damen, and the silence is pierced by the jangling of heavy keys. Then, metal coming loose. Damen pulls his hands in front of him and cracks every bone along the way from his neck to his fingers. A gruff sound of relief escapes his lips, and when Adrastus unchains his feet, he rises.

Upright, Damen changes the balance of the room. Every man around him stands back a little, and holds himself a little less confidently than before.

“Sir,” says Adrastus, his eyes on Damen like a keeper watching a skittish lion. “I—perhaps we might be allowed to know why we’re releasing the Lieutenant? The rest of the men will have questions.”

“The Lieutenant conducted a covert operation to kill Decimus on my orders.”

He does not say, _unilaterally_. He does not say, _against my will_. He does not call Damen a madman, or curse every stubborn sinew of his hulking form. Nik receives every gasp in the room and swallows back his anger. Wearily, he accepts that he’ll have to start praising the same idea he tried to shoot out of the sky.  

He also realizes, quite suddenly, that word of Damen’s actions will spread, and that Damen will likely be called a hero. Medals will probably be involved somewhere down the line. None of which bodes well for Damen’s arrogance, or Nik’s blood pressure.

“But—that’s impossible,” breathes Adrastus. “Decimus died of a single bullet in his _bed_. Are you saying—“

“I took ninety bullets for safety. In the end, I only needed one.” Damen interrupts. “You can check the magazines. They’re in my rucksack.”

Isander is the only soldier from Inventory in the room. Nik flicks a hand, signalling him towards Damen’s rucksack in the corner. Isander pulls out the three magazines and disassembles their floorplates.

After examining each one, he turns to Nik and gives a single nod. “Checks out, Captain.”

“And,” Damen adds, “I bought back a souvenir. Inside the small interior pocket.”

Nik gives him a withering look. This would go better without theatrics.

Pallas fishes his hand deep in the rucksack, biting down on his lip as he struggles with a zip. His fingers emerge holding a single flash-drive. Every set of eyes across the room widens, and Adrastus seems one further revelation away from emitting steam out of his ears.

“What’s that?” He demands.

“Excellent question.” Damen says. “Shame the answer’s above your pay-grade.”

The room breaks out into noise and speculation. The weight of Nik’s exhaustion, which has hovered above him for well over a week by now, collapses suddenly and spectacularly onto his shoulders.

“ _Enough_.” He barks out. “Damen, go to medical. Get yourself cleaned and checked and fed. I expect a full written report in 12 hours. Adrastus, leave him be. The rest of you, back to your stations. Dismissed.”

And without further ado, he turns on his heel and leaves, even though he wants to stay. Blood pounds in his ears as he walks. He pushes away the thought of Damen watching his retreating back.

* * *

The next night, there are celebrations on the base. Nik doesn’t join them, and ends the day as he had begun it – retreated in his office, in his chair, his back to the door. He reads every email in his inbox, every report he isn’t expected to read, _anything_ , just to keep to himself.

The revelry was unplanned, unfolding on its own from dinner. Someone had brought out music, and alcohol had been produced, and Nik took that as his cue to leave quietly. The mess hall is on the other side of the base, but the music from it booms so heavily that it rolls through the building, shaking the four walls around him. It’s so heavy that he can’t make out the song for the bass. Nik figures that if the celebrations spill over, someone will let him know.

And there’s a lot to celebrate.

Damen had been examined and washed and shaved. When he eventually re-emerged, he found a base waiting for him with open arms. Nine days of resenting and cursing Damen had not come easily to Nik’s troops, and the thought of him deserting had been an earthquake at their foundations. It was far easier to adore him. Given the chance to do so again, they did, and asked few questions. Damen slipped into his former post and all the respect he had commanded like a man slipping into a well-worn jacket.

But it had taken Nik’s word to save him. Nik, not Damen, endured a two hour grilling from Command over video-link, explaining and defending the mission. Justifying how and why Damen had behaved as he did, and the covert nature of the operation. The experience was like dining on sand—words caught in Nik's mouth, dried his tongue, and only emerged with a wretched spit, but he forced them out for Damen’s sake.

And in the end, Command left him with an informal rebuke for the record, and a quiet congratulations off it. After all, Decimus was dead. Nik made sure to memorize every poorly-hidden crease of disgust on Kastor’s face. He would describe it to Damen, later.

 _Later_ , because Nik hasn't seem him since the holding room. He isn’t sure if he’s ready to see him just yet. He hasn’t thought as far as what to say.

And Nik knows that he should rejoin the crowd, if only to stand at the wall and nurse the same beer for two hours, playing chaperone. He knows that his absence will reverberate in that mess hall as loudly as any of the music. He knows that Damen will pivot from group to group, and conversation to conversation, all the while looking for him with declining subtlety. People would talk.

Then again, they already do.

And Nik can’t even enjoy his solitude. It’s restless. He meanders between stations in his office, picking up things and putting them down, achieving nothing. Eventually, he collapses back in his chair and settles in to end the evening as he had begun it—facing his computer, with his back to the door, his mind elsewhere.

Then, a knock on the door.

Three hard raps, and then a pause, and two soft ones.

A knock with a character and a history, and Nik is suddenly 12, back in his bedroom at 2am, with Damen balanced on the heavy branches of the mulberry tree outside his window. Damen, flashlight in his teeth, fist against the glass, eyes shining with the quiet thrill of being young and out of bed at the wrong hour.

The knock comes again. When Nik remains quiet, the door opens without permission. The heavy tread of Damen’s footsteps bears inside. Nik doesn’t turn around. He doesn't know if he trusts himself. Still doesn’t know what to say.

To the wall in front of him, he says, “Get out.”

“Nik—”

“—I said,” he interrupts, sharply, “ _get out_.”

The door closes, and the silence is punctured by the metallic _click_ of a lock coming shut. He hears the muffled sound of a body leaning back against wood, the slump of its weight buffered by heavy clothes.

And how typical, for Damen to do the exact opposite of what’s asked of him. Nik's anger rises and sits just under his skin, simmering like voltage, pure energy that begs to be spent.

He suffered through two weeks of thinking Damen was dead. In public, Nik had berated his apparent desertion, but in private, he had mourned the loss of his best friend, and his lover, and his closest confidant. He mourned that all three were in the same person, believing that person to be lost. 

Only now, Damen stands in his room, very much alive. And thank God. But the voltage in Nik still spikes at the injustice of it all. 

“Nik?” Damen asks.

Gentler, this time. More probing, with a shade of remorse—but nowhere near enough to mollify the storm brewing in Nik’s fingertips.

He doesn’t want to, but he turns to look.

And Damen looks _good_ ; a fact he registers with sharp annoyance. His hands are behind his back, trapped between his hulking frame and the door, but Nik can smell the fresh soap on his skin from here. He’s shaved, and someone’s shorn his hair in a fresh undercut, and he’s in clean black clothes.

He looks so alive, so much flesh and blood, that Nik’s anger momentarily slips from between his fingers.

But it recovers. Nik says, “Come to gloat?”

“No. To apologize.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

It’s not a particularly sharp arrow, but it lands, and it sticks. The resolve in Damen’s face flickers.

“I—guess I deserve that,” he concedes.

“No,” says Nik. In the beat that follows, he struggles to keep his tone uniform. “You deserve a dishonorable discharge. I should send you home in disgrace.”

“Nik, I know.” Damen says, coming off the door and moving closer, hovering at the edge of the table with the map. “Believe me, I _know_. But I’m alive, and—“

“— _you_ _could have died_.” Nik interrupts, more loudly than he intends. His anger lifts him up from his chair, and he stabs at the desk with every point. “Or you could have failed and provoked retaliation. Or you could have endangered every man and woman on this base. The fact that none of those things happened is _irrelevant_.” And then, a pause, and laboured breathing, and forcefully, “Ask me how long it’s been, since I slept.”

A pained wince crosses Damen’s expression. “Nik—“

“—I said, _ask me_.”

“How long?”

“A week. I thought you were _dead_ for a week, Damen. You killed your man, but you have no _idea_ what you put me through to do it.”

And there, finally, amidst the straight line of Damen’s defiance – a curve of guilt. It’s there, in the shaky exhale of his breath. In the way his shoulders slump a fraction. He meets Nik’s gaze, but holding it is a visible effort.

It’s not enough to placate Nik. He still wants to break something. But Damen takes a few steps towards him, coming around the table, hovering.

“I won’t apologize for what I did,” says Damen, slowly, carefully, “because it needed to be done, and I think you know that. But I _am_ sorry for what I put you through.”

“You always are, after the fact” says Nik, dark and bitter like coffee dregs. "Keep your damned apology.”

“No.”

Damen continues his approach, like a keeper towards a predator, and Nik watches him come. His fury is unshakeable, but something else settles next to it—a reflex that comes awake whenever Damen’s close enough to touch, or about to be. It’s irresistible, and worst of all is that Damen knows it exists.

Damen knows that if he comes close, or reaches out a hand, Nik won’t forgive him immediately, but he might let him stay. And Nik knows himself too. The closer Damen comes, the more vulnerable his rage is to being cut through by a single, unassailable thought—

—Damen is alive, and he still wants him close.

Damen pauses at the side of Nik’s desk, a reach away. The walls around them thud with the steady beat of music, and Nik’s heart pounds twice for every beat. They’ll have words, later. For now there is silence, and a hunger suspended between them like flint, waiting to be struck and set alight.

Nik watches as Damen reaches for him. His hands—far gentler than they have any right to be, for their size—cup his face and tilt it up. A reckless part of Nik remembers that the door is locked.

"I missed you." Damen says softly. "Are you not going to stop me?"

“No.”

Damen takes a step closer, and Nik feels himself pushed back against the edge of the desk. Damen watches him with eyes as dark and sweet and lingering as treacle. Nik thinks,  _he's alive_.

“Then,” Damen says, lips edging closer, “I should have done this months ago.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos/Cookies/Comments are welcomed. Otherwise, come say hi and drop me a prompt on Tumblr - my username's the same ^_^


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